You hear a lot about gratitude in mindfulness circles. It’s a bit of a thing lately. Maybe some of you think it’s a bit forced, like we’re making ourselves feel grateful about things when we don’t really believe it. When you have difficult events in your life like the loss of a loved one, poor health, a sleepless baby or a stressful job, it seems unnatural to be trying to feel grateful.

But there’s good reason so many mindfulness teachers recommend gratitude practice: it actually makes us healthier and happier. Scientific research into gratitude practice has shown that it lowers blood pressure, reduces pain, strengthens the immune system and helps us sleep better. It can reduce anxiety and depression and help us feel more positive emotions.

Practicing meditation and mindfulness is great for helping us to feel more gratitude: the more we are able to slow down and notice the finer details of life, the more we notice just how much there is to be grateful for.  

But we can also do specific gratitude practices to help build the skill of appreciation.

Gratitude as a daily practice

What I propose you try is a simpler thing than trying to be grateful for the major things in our life, like our health, our loved ones, our safety and so on (which is a great thing to do too!).

Gratitude as a practice can be most easily done by just seeing whatever simple, lovely thing is around you. Nature is a good place to start – a lush fern, a gorgeous flower, a majestic tree. Or a funny child or cute baby nearby. Or the smell of coffee or baking bread. Or cool air on your skin on a hot day. Focus on something you enjoy, however small – eg a delicious food, a swim, a walk outside.

Just noticing the simple things to be grateful for is an excellent practice to help you feel less stressed: you shift your attention to the pleasant and it gives your mind a break from worries or tension. The more you do this, the better you get at it, and the more often you’re likely to notice the pleasant.

So if you’re feeling stressed, try just identifying a few pleasant things around you. And see if you can make it a daily practice: every night before bed think of three things you are grateful for (big or small).

The end of the year is a great time to reflect and practice gratitude – for the big things and the small. It’s a time when lots of things come to an end – the school or university year, courses, classes, lots of passing of milestones.

I’ve been taking the opportunity to thank people in my life this month because it’s the time of year where it’s not weird to give someone a gift! I felt so much gratitude writing Christmas cards to the child care workers who looked after my daughter all year. They did such a beautiful job caring for her, and I reckon child care workers are some of the most highly-contributing and underpaid people (women, of course) in our society.

So now I would like to thank YOU dear reader. Thank you for reading my new blog, and for coming to my workshops and courses. It’s a beautiful thing sharing presence with you.

Wishing you much peace and joy this holiday season. I’m really excited to share with you the love of mindfulness in 2016.

Suzie